Go to page

Go to page

LE

Thats the good news over, its taken the Treasury a week to come up with these cuts.
The bad news is that to keep up with the rate of governemt borrowing he will have to come up with this level of new spending cuts every two weeks.

Borrowing is running at Â£3 billion a week. That equates to the entire annual defence budget every 3 months.

These figures do not include any savings in health, defence or foreign aid.

Secifics include-

Education Â£670 million
Transport Â£683 million
Communities Â£780 million
Business Â£836 million
Devolved Â£704 million

By my reckoning, the cuts amount to about 1% of the 25% overall cuts required

LE

Defence is a real problem, losing a few thousand civil servants through wastage and also shutting down quangos will be a minor drop in the ocean. Not paying the daily bill to Europe would be a big win but the limp dems and The Hermans would be up in arms!
To be honest I think that would take more balls than Cameron and a majority of 300 could manage!

LE

Its the incredible scale of the financial mess that I find a tad worrying.
Even a 25% cut in sending would only stop the debt increasing but wouldn't address what the nation owes.
The 1% cut detailed today is barely scraping the surface of what needs to be done.

LE

Thats the good news over, its taken the Treasury a week to come up with these cuts.
The bad news is that to keep up with the rate of governemt borrowing he will have to come up with this level of new spending cuts every two weeks.

Borrowing is running at Â£3 billion a week. That equates to the entire annual defence budget every 3 months.

These figures do not include any savings in health, defence or foreign aid.

Secifics include-

Education Â£670 million
Transport Â£683 million
Communities Â£780 million
Business Â£836 million
Devolved Â£704 million

By my reckoning, the cuts amount to about 1% of the 25% overall cuts required

Â£6.2 billion of savings this year by central government. Are you sure???

Â£500 million being recycled into new spending, Â£700 million that regional assemblies can save next year not this if they so choose. Â£400 million that local governemnt has to save.

So, if it all works out, central government is looking for just Â£4.6 billion this year and Â£2 billion of that is just cancelling ID cards and similar and demanding discounts from suppliers. Out of a spending budget of Â£750 billion, they've come up with only Â£2.5 billion from hard choices....

LE

I'm quoting the figures given in the news Whitecity, don't blame me if they don't add up!
You will also note that I am unhappy with the scale of cuts and consider them a tiny fraction of what is needed.

LE

This is a softening up exercise. The general public simply are not prepared for the reality of the economic clustershag we face.

The previous Government were not prepared to make the cuts needed because it would have cost them their core vote. Instead we got frankly mendacious rhetoric about needing to keep spending in order to 'secure the recovery'. Whenever anyone else talked about cuts the electorate took one look, decided it didn't like the idea of less spending, and ran away with its fingers in its ears singing la la la la.

25% cuts to public spending are going to be painful. But if the Government is going to take the public with it and avoid Greece style rioting and unrest then the public need to be shown that cutting can and does need to happen.

Old-Salt

Good things coming out of Pippa Strouds office now she has been moved over as Special Advisor to IDS at the DWP - If Frank Field pulls through as Benefits Tzar we could have cross party (if not with the shadow cabinet with the Labour rank and file) benefit reform concensus for the first time... well ever.

LE

Do not dismiss the "seeking discounts fron suppliers" as being a trivial issue that will not yield worthwhile results but only if you do it for real. But there has always been a bit of a problem with that:

Woolwich Dockyard

"While the Royal James was bringing towards the dock, we went out and saw the manner and trouble of docking such a ship, which yet they could not do, but only brought her head into the Dock, and so shored her up till next tide.

But, good God! what a deal of company was there from both yards to help to do it, when half the company would have done it as well.

I see it is impossible for the King to have things done as cheap as other men."

MIA

This is a softening up exercise. The general public simply are not prepared for the reality of the economic clustershag we face.

The previous Government were not prepared to make the cuts needed because it would have cost them their core vote. Instead we got frankly mendacious rhetoric about needing to keep spending in order to 'secure the recovery'. Whenever anyone else talked about cuts the electorate took one look, decided it didn't like the idea of less spending, and ran away with its fingers in its ears singing la la la la.

25% cuts to public spending are going to be painful. But if the Government is going to take the public with it and avoid Greece style rioting and unrest then the public need to be shown that cutting can and does need to happen.

My bold: Come the autumn the public will have no choice but be prepared for the forthcoming radical changes required to sort this mess out.

Also the public have known for a long time the 'Real' pain is yet to unfold & this coalition will/could well be hated by a % within the next 12 months for cuts the public face, but thats to be expected anyway

It's interesting to read reports of MP's still moaning of changes but leading from the top & showing an example is one step forward even though there is a hell of a lot work still to push on with,

LE

Cameron-Clegg need to hold their nerve and drive through really deep cutting measures before the middle of the parliament.
They'll be unpopular then anyway so no real loss, and the benefits of the cuts should pull through in time for the next general election in 5 years time.

Pay freeze? Many of us already have, nobody where I work has had a pay rise in the last three years. Can't see one coming anytime soon either.

I'm quite prepared for 25-30% spending cuts, as long as tax rises are avoided.
The long and short of it is that the taxpayer doesn't have any more cash to give to the treasury. Raise taxes and an awful lot of people are going to go under.

The options now are limited. Increasing the tax burden will kill off any hope of growth. Tax redutions might help stimulate the economy, particularly fuel duty.

The only real option is to reduce public spening on a massive scale, the 1% we have seen today is just pissing in the wind.

MIA

To be fair when the UK is in dire financial stook we 'all' have to make sacrifices to get through the tough times which lay ahead, we have'nt reached the stage of rioting in the streets due to radical cuts but discontent & strikes will IMO become more regular,

SF: I really hope C & C can hold their nerve to achieve their aim in 5 years but the realist in me says longer possibly.

No, that is incorrect
The Â£163 billion figure is how much we are spending per year that we do not have. That is how much our debt is increasinf (Â£3 billion a week) and not how much we owe.
We are estimated to owe Â£1790 billion, thats roughly 11 times the figure you were thinking of.....

LE

Dealing with tax evasion, tax avoidance and
collecting unpaid tax alone would net ..............................Â£123 billion
Scrap Trident:.................................................................Â£97 billion
Scrap proposed aircraft carriers:......................................Â£14 billion
Stop the Afghan war - save lives and...............................Â£4.5 billion
Make those on earnings above Â£884 per week pay
National Insurance on all earnings above that level:..........Â£8.5 billion
Restore the top rate of income tax to 60% gets you...........Â£19 billion
Restore Corporation Tax to the level it was under Thatcher:Â£18 billion
Scrap the ID Card scheme and save...................................Â£5 billion

Doing all the above would save Â£289 billion

Profits went up by Â£24 billion in 2009, while the wage bill rose Â£2 billion

Why expect working people to pay for the current financial mess? Virtually the whole media bleats on about 'gold-plated' Public Sector pensions, about how Local Government needs to be cut back with thousands upon thousands of job losses, about how everyone should feel the pain.

Was it not the Tory-deregulated capitalist bankers who created this whole mess? Did it stop their bonuses? Did they feel the pain? They can, seemingly, get away with blue murder, but ordinary working people are set to take the hammer blows of redundancy and cuts in wages and working conditions.

Working people in the private sector have nothing to gain and everything to lose by not supporting those in the public sector. The capitalist class are doing their level best to split us and more fool us if we let them.

LE

Dealing with tax evasion, tax avoidance and
collecting unpaid tax alone would net ..............................Â£123 billion
Scrap Trident:.................................................................Â£97 billionScrap proposed aircraft carriers:......................................Â£14 billionStop the Afghan war - save lives and...............................Â£4.5 billion
Make those on earnings above Â£884 per week pay
National Insurance on all earnings above that level:..........Â£8.5 billion
Restore the top rate of income tax to 60% gets you...........Â£19 billion
Restore Corporation Tax to the level it was under Thatcher:Â£18 billion
Scrap the ID Card scheme and save...................................Â£5 billion

Doing all the above would save Â£289 billion

Profits went up by Â£24 billion in 2009, while the wage bill rose Â£2 billion

Why expect working people to pay for the current financial mess? Virtually the whole media bleats on about 'gold-plated' Public Sector pensions, about how Local Government needs to be cut back with thousands upon thousands of job losses, about how everyone should feel the pain.

Was it not the Tory-deregulated capitalist bankers who created this whole mess? Did it stop their bonuses? Did they feel the pain? They can, seemingly, get away with blue murder, but ordinary working people are set to take the hammer blows of redundancy and cuts in wages and working conditions.

Working people in the private sector have nothing to gain and everything to lose by not supporting those in the public sector. The capitalist class are doing their level best to split us and more fool us if we let them.

MIA

Dealing with tax evasion, tax avoidance and
collecting unpaid tax alone would net ..............................Â£123 billionScrap Trident:.................................................................Â£97 billion
Scrap proposed aircraft carriers:......................................Â£14 billion
Stop the Afghan war - save lives and...............................Â£4.5 billion
Make those on earnings above Â£884 per week pay
National Insurance on all earnings above that level:..........Â£8.5 billion
Restore the top rate of income tax to 60% gets you...........Â£19 billion
Restore Corporation Tax to the level it was under Thatcher:Â£18 billion
Scrap the ID Card scheme and save...................................Â£5 billion

Doing all the above would save Â£289 billion

Profits went up by Â£24 billion in 2009, while the wage bill rose Â£2 billion

Why expect working people to pay for the current financial mess? Virtually the whole media bleats on about 'gold-plated' Public Sector pensions, about how Local Government needs to be cut back with thousands upon thousands of job losses, about how everyone should feel the pain.

Was it not the Tory-deregulated capitalist bankers who created this whole mess? Did it stop their bonuses? Did they feel the pain? They can, seemingly, get away with blue murder, but ordinary working people are set to take the hammer blows of redundancy and cuts in wages and working conditions.

Working people in the private sector have nothing to gain and everything to lose by not supporting those in the public sector. The capitalist class are doing their level best to split us and more fool us if we let them.